


The Number of Times

by TheBoathouse



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Post-War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:13:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26657185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBoathouse/pseuds/TheBoathouse
Summary: Pansy Parkinson, stripped of her magic after the war ends, tries to drink her troubles away in a muggle bar.  She doesn't expect Lavender Brown to be the one pouring her drinks.
Relationships: Lavender Brown/Pansy Parkinson
Kudos: 1





	The Number of Times

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at writing fanfiction in about fifteen years, so please let me know your thoughts, good or bad.
> 
> Initial inspiration from the prompt "the amount of times I’ve heard ‘you just haven’t found the right man’… Like fuck off mate,” found on femslashpromptsdaily.tumblr.com.

Chapter One

“The number of times I’ve heard ‘you just haven’t found the right man’… Like, fuck off, mate.”

“You think you’ve heard it a lot? Every other guy who walks through that door tries to chat me up – here I was, thinking telling them I’m a lesbian would be get them off of that track without them getting aggressive about it. Took nearly three weeks to learn that never works.”

Pansy hadn’t been expecting a response to her comment (hadn’t realized she said it out loud, or that there was anyone left on her end of the bar), and looked up from her nearly empty pint, startled.

“Alright, Parkinson?” Said the bartender, smirking. When Pansy stared at her without responding, she continued, “I saw that guy hanging around you. You didn’t look like you wanted to talk to him, so I figured I’d come over see if you needed help getting rid of him, but it seems like you handled it fine on your own. As long as I’m here, though, do you need another pint?”

Without waiting for a response, the bartender started filling a glass of water for Pansy. “Lavender Brown?” Pansy managed, finally.

“Caught on, then? Suppose you haven’t seen me since the battle. I like to think the scars make me pretty recognizable these days,” Lavender replied, gesturing to the two long, thin scars that framed her right eye, before glancing down at the four parallel lines marking the dark skin of her upper arm.

Pansy’s eyes traced the scars briefly. “What are you doing in muggle Manchester, Brown? I would have thought – well.”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Lavender replied, any warmth from her earlier tone gone completely by now. “You never struck me as the type to drown your sorrows alone, much less to do so surrounded by muggles.”

“Didn’t you hear?” Pansy scoffed. “The ministry snapped my wand after the battle – a five-year banishment from wizarding society. I’ll be allowed another in four years or so, but until then I have to figure out how to live with the muggles.” She finished what was left of her pint in one gulp, and drew several bills out of her purse, placing them on the bar in front of her before standing up. “At least their currency makes sense.”

Lavender watched her stalk out of the pub, considering.

* * *

Pansy had made it only a block back towards her flat when she remembered why she had left it in the first place. 

After the war, Pansy hadn’t had a real trial. Before the debris was even cleared from the Hogwarts grounds, the Ministry, in an effort to demonstrate that they were on the winning side of the war, despite having offered no tangible support to Dumbledore and his followers, had put out a call for members of the public to send in tips about individuals who had engaged in “behavior threatening the wizarding community” in the preceding twelve months. With the bureaucracy in shambles (and several of its own members having been credibly accused), it quickly became clear that the Ministry would not be able to hold trials for all suspects, and so they implemented an expedited hearing process for anyone whose purported transgressions did not warrant a stay in Azkaban. (Pansy heard that Hermione Granger had written several strongly worded letters to the Ministry regarding the process on the whole.)

Pansy received an owl on June 1, telling her that she would be expected in Boris Bagshot’s office on the second floor of the Ministry of Magic at 11 o’clock sharp the following day. When she arrived, seven Hufflepuff students were waiting in the office already, each prepared to describe Pansy’s conduct at the outset of the battle, as well as what she had done to them at the behest of the Carrows. Pansy didn’t deny any of it. By 11:30, her wand was snapped, Bagshot had recorded her punishment in the DMLE’s internal register, and she had walked out of the office, stunned, with a letter in hand explaining that she was forbidden from practicing magic for five years, and that she would need to receive clearance from the ministry in advance before entering Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade, or any other predominantly-magical public spaces in England (or, it was heavily implied, the rest of Europe) before the end of that period. She was allowed to use the floo network to travel between private homes and would be permitted to use magical products created by others, including potions, but would otherwise be banned from the practice of witchcraft.

Her father, a potioneer who had managed to stay completely neutral throughout the second war, allowed her one week of wallowing, and then reminded her that she would have to leave the house at some point in the next five years, and did she know that the muggles had a coffee shop around the corner? Pansy had wallowed at the coffee shop for several weeks, slowly developing an understanding of muggle customs of dress, speech, and behavior, and with her father’s encouragement, started a job at a muggle bookstore. And then, as always, late in the summer she received an owl from Hogwarts. Rather than a supply list, however, this year she had received a personalized letter from Professor McGonnagall:

> _Dear Miss Parkinson,_
> 
> _As you may be aware, Hogwarts will be reopening in the fall for students who wish to continue their magical education in Britain. I regret to inform you that, due to the terms of the sentence imposed on you by the Ministry of Magic, we will not be able to offer you a place at Hogwarts this term, nor will you be permitted to sit for your N.E.W.T.s in the spring._
> 
> _Please inform me, however, if you would like to continue your education in the muggle world. Most years, Hogwarts converts several students’ N.E.W.T. results to the equivalent muggle qualifications, enabling them to enroll at various muggle universities. Although you will not be permitted to sit for your N.E.W.T.s, upon discussion with several of the other professors here at Hogwarts, as well as a review of the files maintained by professors who are no longer with us, we have concluded that, given the circumstances, it would not be inappropriate to create such qualifications for you as well. Enclosed are sample brochures for several muggle universities, which describe the options available to you as well as the standard timeline for admissions._
> 
> _Sincerely,_
> 
> _M. McGonagall_

So, Pansy had applied to muggle university, and eventually decided to enroll in a history course at the University of Manchester. Her father was thrilled, and the daughter of a French colleague of his would also be enrolling at Manchester, so he suggested that, rather than living in student accommodations (where Pansy’s lingering unfamiliarity with muggle customs might be more readily observed), the two of them rent a flat together. 

This, ultimately, had been a mistake. Although Helene was French, she was still aware of Pansy’s wartime sympathies, and very clearly thought Pansy beneath her (it seemed her own father had exerted considerable pressure to get her to agree to sharing a living space with Pansy). Helene used magic around the flat about as often as a seventeen-year-old who had only just dropped the Trace, and every time she did, she gave Pansy a pointed look, as if to taunt her about her inability to do the same, and when Pansy wasn’t around to be taunted, she would leave enormous messes in the common spaces, that Pansy had to clean up by hand. 

Moreover, Helene managed to bring every conversation between the two of them around to a discussion of the Death Eaters – “Oh, Pansy, look at this – Narcissa Malfoy was sentenced to only one year in Azkaban, how atrocious, she deserved a much longer sentence, don’t you think? Well, maybe you don’t agree…” “Yes, this flat is extremely small, but better than being in Azkaban, like so many of _your_ friends.” “Look, Pansy, I was just reading about this man, Vincent Crabbe. He tried to kill Harry Potter and only managed to kill himself, isn’t that perfect! Did you know him?”

That was what had driven her out to the pub tonight – after Pansy spent nearly an hour cleaning baked-on sauces out of seemingly every pot and pan in the flat (Pansy _knew_ Helene had magicked them on in the first place – they had barely lived there a week) so that she could make her own dinner, Helene had stalked out of her own room, brandishing a copy of the _Daily Prophet_. “Did you see this, Pansy? Harry Potter, of all people, has spoken up at _Draco Malfoy’s_ trial, saying that he doesn’t deserve time in Azkaban! Draco Malfoy! It’s unconscionable! The man deserves to rot.”

Pansy had snapped. “Well, if _Saint Potter_ says he doesn’t deserve a sentence, who are we mere mortals to argue?” She grabbed the paper out of Helene’s hand and her jacket off the hook nearest the door, and headed to the nearest pub. 

Pansy had spent an hour and a half wallowing in the corner of the bar over the unfairness of everything – having to live with a girl that hated her, being forced into the muggle world in the first place, the fact that Draco, of all people, looked now to be poised to have a more lenient sentence than she did- over a plate of chips and, in the end, three pints of beer, before a very handsy man who barely knew how to take no for an answer had made his way over to her.

The telling-off she’d given him had been satisfying, and she had been ready to retreat into a fourth pint, before realizing that the bartender was someone she knew, and, for that matter, someone who had every right to give Pansy a telling-off of her own. And so, before that had become a possibility, she had walked out, before realizing that leaving meant that she would have to return to the disastrous flat and her rude roommate.

But would a conversation with Lavender Brown, of all people, have been any better?


End file.
